


Arts du Cirque

by Crow_Dust



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Jos Verstappen's A+ Parenting, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24076168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crow_Dust/pseuds/Crow_Dust
Summary: A circus, in particular, a chapiteau, is always a romance of long journeys, travels, meetings with new people and exotic animals. Circus is an art that becomes life.
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Charles Leclerc, Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen, Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	1. I. Daniel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eanes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eanes/gifts).



> I know almost nothing about circuses, but I wrote this work for my wonderful bae **Eanes** at her request ♥  
> The work is a bit of an experiment in writing for me, so I hope it turned out well. All mistakes are mine as well as attempts at English. Enjoy xx

Joining a traveling circus seemed to Daniel something unusual, wild and interesting. He was attracted by a sense of adventure and travel around the world, and forced to remain a love of art.

Role harlequin is formed on the mask of playfulness and his ostentatious nonchalance. _Laugh, dear crowd, at my misfortunes_ , as if he says. After all, Daniel is ready to accept any public punishment with a smile on his face.

They called him El Sorridente. They applaud him, they laugh.

His reprises find a response in the hearts of people. His interludes become the highlight of the program, twisting the whole meaning of the circus performance.

Verstappen Sr. is angry at him, saying that he spoils his work with his 'nonsense' and cheap clowning. However, Max and his tigress Pascal are happy to share the same stage with him, and their humorous improvisation during rehearsal soon turned into a full-fledged number.

The audience watches with bated breath as Pascal playfully tries to bite his head off, while Max suppresses his laughter and acts out his role as an annoyed trainer.

People start coming to see him. Daniel Ricciardo. A faceless, smiling clown. Their El Sorridente.

But he looks only at the sky.

There, under the dome — in the sky, in the spotlight on the trapeze stands Charles Leclerc, ready to soar over the arena. His movements are graceful, honed and mesmerizingly beautiful. Daniel likes to watch the ease with which the young voltigeur performs complex pirouettes and elements of his program, completely trusting the catcher Jules, and how Charles's face lights up with a mischievous boyish smile, as soon as he steps backstage under the roar of applause. He lives on the energy of the crowd, tastes its praise and adoration, and he so is satisfied with himself. Daniel would wink at him, and Charles would blush and look away, while Jules behind him would only sigh wearily and shake his head. It's the same thing from city to city, but they already consider this minor folly their peculiar tradition.

The audience loves the young talent, applauding the flying Duo. The flying Leclerc brothers, the sign said. However, Charles’s family is now more busy with administrative work in the circus, leaving the arena to the younger offspring and his godfather.

Charles himself has already written his name in history, having successfully performed the triple somersault-mortale at the age of sixteen. But there is no limit to perfection, as he repeated over and over again. It was Jules's idea to repeat the Clerans' performance, and so the arena saw the "death jump", which became the highlight of their program along with the triple somersault-mortale.

Life, like a rope, can end at any second. A deafening crash and shout from the audience is heard over the arena to the sound of applause and the enthusiasm of the crowd, when the gymnasts have already finished their performance and went down. The projectile failed — and here is a lifeless body lying on the arena. Sand, blood, and tears. An aborted life under the dome of the circus is a long-accepted and unavoidable reality, like all the risks of the profession, but it still knocks the spirit out of you and leaves you alone with your own fears.

Face to face with tragedy. There is no room for a smile, but the show must continue in the name of art. _So smile, my dear friend, there is no place for sadness_.

Later that night, when all the commotion had subsided, in the dark of Daniel's trailer, a disconsolate Charles sat in his arms. Young Leclerc's body convulsed with sobs, and he clings desperately to Daniel for warmth and comfort. His t-shirt is wet with tears, but Daniel doesn't care, he just holds Charles tighter, stroking his back soothingly and whispering nonsense until he falls asleep, exhausted and broken.

After all, on that fateful night, two became one.

×××

Years go by. Administration, times and mores are changing. But one thing remains the same: circus performers fulfill the terms of the contract. This is the law of the circus: the projectile can be repaired, the man can be replaced.

Charles still conquers the trapeze, forgetting for a while about the triple somersault-mortale, gracefully flying into the hands of his brother Lorenzo.

His new passion is aerial silk. He hones his skills every day in rehearsals, while Daniel's heart sinks every time he sees Charles fall down, wrapped in a blood-red cloth, and freeze halfway to the ground in another mind-boggling static pose. Charles will smile brightly when he sees Daniel standing down in the shadows, and Daniel will exhale in relief and smile back at him.

Daniel looks good in his new role. The Ringmaster. Sprechstallmeister. It sounds proud and difficult to pronounce.

It was difficult for him to part with his mask without a face. But Max and Charles were persuasive in their words when they said that no one couldn’t find a more suitable person than he for this role. Even Lewis was categorical when he removed his authority.

_“You'll be the same El Sorridente to everyone, old man, only with a greater range of responsibilities," Hamilton says blandly, an earring glinting in his ear, and pats him on the shoulder. “Besides, your legacy is in good hands as is mine.”_

His young protégé, Lando, a London thief whom Ricciardo met at a fair and brought to the circus, is very talented and funny. His сomedy catchy, увпн and leaves an indelible impression, so Daniel readily removes his mask of the jester and putting on a different-more complex.

Daniel chuckles to himself. He smooths the lapels of his jacket, taking one last look in the stage mirror before going out to the arena to hear the band's carcass. A lot has changed over the years, he has changed, his environment and attitude.

But his gaze is still directed at the sky, and his heart is torn with love. For art. To the circus. To _him_.

×××

Charles kisses him in Barcelona, declares his love in Stockholm, and in London, Daniel is ready to give him the whole world.


	2. II. Max

The traveling circus, or chapito, as his father had said over and over again, was his life, enclosed in the circle of the arena and covered by the dome of the circus and his father's love.

The name Verstappen sounds proud and catchy. Max's family has been training wild exotic animals for several generations. And now this burden is ready to fall on his shoulders.

He loves the circus, he loves his animals, he loves his sister and her pack of dogs in funny costumes. He's afraid of his father.

In his business, fear is equal to death.

×××

The appearance of a new clown in their circus, their harlequin, was a turning point in Max's career.

Now he performed not only for himself, his father, or the audience, but for _him_ as well. The one who smiled at him; the one who saw in Max not only a legacy and a dynasty, but a man of blood and flesh with his own feelings and emotions; the one who helps him after a difficult quarrels with his father and unsuccessful performances. The one who replaced the sun. He does it for Daniel Ricciardo, who has given up his name for the crowd.

Max is a talented trainer. However, it is time for him to step out of his father's shadow. This is what his mother tells him, and Victoria echoes it, but for the first time he believes it when the words fall from Ricciardo's lips.

Pascal, like him, was born in a circus. She didn't see the outside world; Max was everything to her. Master, father, friend.

Daniel helps him train. He amazed Max by the way he fearlessly approached the tiger cages, but avoided Victoria's dogs; by how he questioned the authority of his father, who sometimes forgot the difference between raising children and training; by how easily he joined the life of the circus and became an integral part of it. Part of Max's life.

Pascal caresses Daniel, and Max feels a slight twinge of jealousy, but his heart aches from what he has seen. Their performance has huge success under the disapproving gaze of their father and the applause of an enthusiastic audience.

×××

It is difficult to love someone whose eyes are turned to the sky. Max is more down-to-earth.

The imprint of the tragedy is clearly visible on Charles's face. A depressing reminder that we are all mortal, and those who fly too close to the sun will suffer a sad fate.

They had been close to each other since childhood, but they had never been _close_. So close in spirit, they were separated by a distance that felt like infinity.

_I should be better than him. My name will be higher than his. I will block the sun for him, covering him with the shadow of my greatness._

Their names in the poster will be separated by a simple but significant _El Sorridente_. A bridge between their worlds, stretching between sky and earth.

Max desperately clings to the ephemeral railing, afraid to let go and fall down into the cold and gnawing loneliness.

×××

Verstappen Sr. furiously storms out of the office of the new head of the circus. The latter threatens him with trial and arrest. That night, his father disappears with all the documents, leaving behind his family and animals.

Max, with the help of Lewis, places animals in zoos and reserves, leaving only the faithful Pascal in the circus. Their performance is colorful and full of love. Victoria puts on a new program, and they get a standing ovation. He's actually smiling during the da Capo.

Max exhales freely for the first time in years.

×××

Max decides to kiss Daniel in Brussels, confess his feelings in Munich, receiving a polite refusal. It’s only in Montreal when he is ready to admit that Daniel's love for the sky is mutual and pure.


	3. III. Lando

Lando Norris got into the traveling circus with the easy hand of Daniel Ricciardo. He found him at a crowded Christmas market in London with a stolen watch in his pocket.

The watch was old, worn, and engraved on the metal case. A thing of value only to its owner, not to the owner of the pawnshop where Lando sold all the stolen goods.

Annoyed that he had fallen for the veneer of the owner, who looked like a model on the cover of a fashion magazine, Lando was caught red-handed by Ricciardo.

_No police, lad. Just you and me. Return the watch and you are free. They are dear to him as a memory._

Lando had a lot to say about memory, but he didn't say anything. At that moment, he felt in this strange stranger like _him_ — a child of the streets, who made his way through life, but did not forget where he started.

"Tell that dandy to be careful," Lando had muttered, ready to disappear into the crowd when someone called out to him.

The question that changed his life was as simple as is sounds: _what's your name, boy?_

×××

The circus life consumed him at once. Lando became an irreplaceable part of the team, an unspoken shadow of Daniel and his protégé.

He followed him in rehearsals, absorbing knowledge and skills like a sponge. The balancing element? Easy. Come up with a reprise? Everything for you! Go to the tiger cage? ...Maybe tomorrow?

Lando quickly became friends with the young trainer, Max. The man showed him the other side of life in the circus, but he did it with such fire in his eyes that Lando only fell more in love with this atmosphere of turmoil and eternal moving from place to place.

Max had never had a home of his own, and neither had Charles, so they didn’t understand the longing in the eyes of those who came to the circus arena from outside. However, Lando's home is no longer in sight — only faded memories of a happy childhood.

At first, he was embarrassed and even somewhat ashamed to communicate with Charles (the memory of the stolen watch still settled in his chest with a burning shame). But he soon realized that under the mask of cold aloofness there was a laughing young man with a tragic fate.

Lando only rolls his eyes at the sight of all these looks from under the lashes, giggles and unthinkable tricks performed by young artists should Daniel appear in the field of view. Daniel is _good_ , but not enough to turn Lando's head like the others.

Their work is coordinated. Their entree is honed to the smallest detail, touching all the right strings and pulling the right strings of the laughing audience. They play apache better than actors at the global theater. So when Daniel gets promoted and tries on a new role in their circus world, Lando easily takes his place. With a twinkle and a laugh.

He finally feels at home.

×××

Carlos Sainz broke into his life on a black horse and stole his heart.

A thief who is used to stealing the most precious things from others is unexpectedly glad to be robbed. _Take It, I don't need it, it's all yours._

Lando stands spellbound in the wings and watches his act.

Daniel chuckles knowingly in his ear. Dressed in a new suit without the usual unchanging black satin mask on his face, he looks alien and strange, but so familiar. Lando wants to throw a scathing comment about the scarlet sequins on his cuffs when all the air is knocked out of his lungs — and he flies to the ring.

To die under the hooves of the boy of his dreams was far from Lando's dream, but it could become his reality. Later this became an element of his program.

×××

  
Carlos invites him to dinner in Prague, beats him at a bowling alley in Tokyo, and in Sydney Lando first hears a quiet: _mí corazón_.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: nathanieldewalde.


End file.
